It's a terrible story, but also a very French one:
An 80-year-old Frenchman was recovering in a state of shock in hospital on Saturday after being freed from a year locked in a laundry room by a wife half his age and her alleged lover.
French paramilitary police rescued the unnamed man from his home in the village of Arrou, southwest of Paris, on Wednesday, blinded, malnourished and physically abused by the ordeal at the hands of his own family.
A judicial source told AFP the man was conscious and lucid in hospital, but did not yet want to speak to anyone.
"The victim suffered violence and ill-treatment," local police commander Bruno Arviset told journalists. "The man ate twice a day, mostly pastries that were past their sell-by date."
The story does not say if the man ever did any laundry.